Man who killed his parents seeks new sentence: Robert Dingman invokes new Supreme Court ruling

By JIM HADDADINjhaddadin@fosters.com

Friday, February 15, 2013

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Robert Dingman

CONCORD — A Rochester man who murdered his parents 17 years ago is asking a judge to reconsider whether he should spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Robert Dingman filed a petition at the end of January seeking to have his two lifetime prison sentences vacated.

Dingman, who shot his parents dead at age 17 with the help of his brother, is asking a judge to grant him a new sentencing hearing.

Dingman is invoking a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court ruled last year that it's unconstitutional to impose a mandatory life prison sentence without the possibility of parole on anyone younger than 18.

The court held that imposing an automatic life sentence on juvenile murderers violates a constitutional protection against “cruel and unusual punishment.”

In New Hampshire and some other states, 17-year-olds are automatically treated as adults during criminal proceedings. That means they are subject to being charged with first-degree murder, which carries a mandatory lifetime sentence.

The law has been applied to render life sentences for Dingman and at least four others who committed murder while they were juveniles.

Most recently, Steven Spader was found guilty of killing Kimberly Cates and attacking her 11-year-old daughter during a home invasion in Mont Vernon.

In another case, 17-year-old Robert Tulloch, of Vermont, was convicted of assisting in the stabbing deaths of a pair of Dartmouth College professors inside their home in 2001.

In a fourth case, Eduardo Lopez was found guilty of shooting dead a restaurant owner on a street in Nashua in 1991. He was also 17 at the time.

Michael Soto is the fifth convict serving a lifetime sentence. Soto was found guilty of being an accomplice to the 2007 shooting of Aaron Kar in Manchester, according to multiple published reports.

Dingman was convicted in 1997 of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder.

All five convicts are now asking for their sentences to be reconsidered.

Through his attorney, Dingman filed a petition seeking a writ of habeas corpus in Merrimack County Superior Court on Jan. 29.

A writ of habeas corpus is used to bring a prisoner or other detainee before the court to determine if the person's imprisonment is lawful, according to a definition provided by Cornell University Law School.

The main issue that will be discussed at the habeas corpus hearing is whether the Supreme Court's ruling in last year's Miller v. Alabama case applies retroactively to people like Dingman. The ruling does not explicitly address that question.

The New Hampshire attorney general's office is taking the position that the ruling does not apply to defendants whose criminal proceedings have already concluded.

Under that interpretation, Spader is the only juvenile murderer for whom the new Supreme Court decision bears any significance. Spader was sentenced in 2011 to mandatory life without parole, but his case was still on appeal at the time of the Supreme Court's latest ruling.

The attorney general's office has agreed to grant Spader a new sentencing hearing, which is scheduled to take place later this year.

Attorneys for the state will challenge the remaining four requests. A Merrimack County judge has signed off on a plan to consolidate Dingman's petition with those of Tulloch, Lopez and Soto.

A hearing on the cases is tentatively scheduled for April 12 at 9 a.m. at the New Hampshire State Prison in Concord, although it's possible the venue will be changed before then.

Dingman is being represented by public defender Caroline L. Smith. Smith has not returned calls seeking comment on Dingman's case.

In court documents, Smith argued that the Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama speaks directly to Dingman's sentence, which she said is “unconstitutional and must be vacated.”

“Mr. Dingman was 17 years old at the time of the murders in this case,” she wrote on behalf of her client. “He does not deny that substantial punishment is warranted for his convictions. However, the acts were committed when he was a child. The Eighth Amendment and (the Supreme Court's recent decision) require a sentencing hearing at which the trial court has the opportunity to consider all relevant mitigating evidence, especially as it relates to his immaturity at the time of the offense and his mental health.”

The trial of Robert Dingman and his brother, Jeffrey, riveted local residents and garnered national media attention. Jeffrey Dingman testified against his brother, telling a Strafford County Superior Court jury both siblings shot their parents, Vance and Eve Dingman, with a .22-caliber handgun.

Police found the bodies of the boys' parents in the attic and basement of their house on Old Dover Road three days after the Feb. 9, 1996, homicides.

Jeffrey Dingman pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder as part of a plea agreement with the state that required him to testify against his brother.

Robert's friends from Spaulding High School were also called to the stand by then Assistant Attorney General John Kacavas, who now serves as the U.S. Attorney in New Hampshire. They testified that Dingman had expressed a desire to kill his parents before they were murdered.

“You will spend the remainder of your natural life in prison, a sentence which is wholly justified by the brutality of your acts,” Superior Court Judge Bruce Mohl said before imposing the mandatory lifetime prison sentence in 1997.